Ernesta Gertrude Procope (née Forster) (2 September 1923 – 30 November 2021) was an American investment banker and insurance executive who was the head of the largest insurance agency run by a Black woman.[1] Ernesta Gertrude Forster was born on Feb. 9, 1923, in Brooklyn and was raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant. As a child, she played the piano and performed once at Carnegie Hall.[2]
She founded the commercial insurance brokerage firm E. G. Bowman, Inc. in 1953, naming it after her husband who had died the previous year.[3] In 1977, E. G. Bowman became the first African American owned business to be located on Wall Street.[4] She was also the chairperson of the board of directors at Adelphi University. An investigation of the school's finances showed that it was a customer of E. G. Bowman.[5] For this conflict of interest, she, the president, and sixteen other members of the board were removed from their posts.[6]
In 1972, she presented with the Woman of the Year Award by then First Lady, Pat Nixon.[1]
She died on 30 November 2021, in Queens, New York, at the age of 98.[7]
. Jessie Carney Smith. Jessie Carney Smith. Black Firsts: 4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Historical Events. 2012. Visible Ink Press. 978-1-57859-424-5. 171.